Bruce
Monnin won the 2004 championship with a 6-1 record, becoming
the second player to win three crowns. He previously took the
top prize in 1991 and 1993. Bruce defeated Tim Hitchings (5-2),
himself a former champion, in the finals. Third place went to
defending champ Ray Freeman (5-1), who was the only player to
win all five preliminary games. The GM lucked into 4th place
with a 4-1 mark. To reach the semi-finals, Bruce, Tim, and the
GM won a tiebreaker over AREA leader Jonathan Lockwood (also
4-1). All had 40 victory points at the completion of the Swiss
rounds. Jonathan, however, had the lowest schedule strength and
settled for the 5th place plaque.

Both semi-finals were wild affairs. Tim Hitchings, Allies,
bidding 1.5, came from behind to defeat Ray Freeman,' Axis in
a game in which both players ran into clock difficulty. Ray finished
with just nine seconds on his clock and Tim had but a minute
and a half. In the other semi-final, Bruce Monnin's Axis also
came from behind, making up three POC on Turn 8. His last die
roll disabled Vince Meconi's last Allied convoy in the Barents
to pull out a 0.5-POC triumph. Vince had bid 1.5 for the Allies.
In the finals, Bruce Monnin bid 1.0 for the Allies, then erected
the blockade on Turn 1 and never gave it up, forcing Tim's Axis
concession after Turn 7.

Rounding out the top 10 were Glenn McMaster, 4-1, (6th), Frank
Cunliffe, 3-2, (7th), Joe Collinson, 3-2 (8th), Dennis Nicholson,
3-2, (9th), and John Elliott, 3-1, (10th). Darren Kilfara was
our Rookie of the Year. For the fourth time, Ray Freeman garnered
Best Allied Player laurels with a 4-0 log (this after he won
Best Axis Player honors last year). Champ Bruce Monnin copped
Best Axis Player at 4-1.

Our 51 entrants tied the highest total ever. Bidding was more
prevalent and more one-sided than ever before. 63 games featured
bids for the Allies and just three for the Axis. There was no
bid in 20 contests. Despite all the bidding for the Allies, they
still came out on top 53 times vs. only 31 wins for the Axis.
That was the highest percentage of games ever won by the Allies
at a WBC or Avaloncon. There were two ties.

Don Greenwood earned his first WAS laurels, besting a field
of 44 in the fourth BPA War At Sea PBeM Championship. The sole
player to go 5-0 in five swiss rounds, he went on to defeat Tim
Tow in the semi-finals and Ed Menzel for a second time in the
final. Having never advanced past the first round in the previous
tournaments, Don rode a rare hot streak to seven straight 10-point
wins. Also collecting laurels were: